Roman Catholics: The Human Voice Means More

One week to the day after Quaker
Norman Morrison burned himself to death outside the Pentagon, Roman
Catholic Roger LaPorte, 22, a student at Manhattan's Hunter College,
doused his clothes with gasoline and set himself aflame on a street
corner outside United Nations headquarters. Like Morrison, he chose
immolation as a way to protest U.S. warfare in South Viet Nam.

LaPorte lived for 33 hours, mostly in a coma, before dying. From the
hospital, he sent a message to friends, saying: "I want to live." A
Catholic priest felt sufficiently convinced of his contrition to give
LaPorte the last rites...